For some reason (likely because I am neurotic and like to torture myself), I have spent a lot of this waiting time thinking about the onset of B's autism. He did not have the type of regression that you hear about where the child is developing totally normally and then starts to lose skills like language, play etc. And I definitely did not "just know" that something was "off" the way many parents do. When we first started using the A word, I was pretty positive that there was nothing distinguishable about B other than his late language acquisition. And, to be fair, it isn't unheard of for a 2 year old not to be talking. I couldn't think of anything else that was different about him.
B's autism did not present itself in a typical manner - at least not in anything I've read about. His primary "symptom" was excessive happiness and silliness... what parent would worry about that? When we were first going through the quest for answers and diagnosis, I spent considerable time looking back through all of his pictures. There he is, looking right at the camera with a huge smile on his face. I couldn't find any where he was looking sideways or off in his own world. This could of course be due in part to the digital camera age whereby I take 30 similar shots and delete all but 2 or 3 of the good ones. But I don't think so. He truly was always happy and smiling. Friends told me how lucky I was to have such a happy baby.
More recently, I've looked back at some video clips which are a little more telling. Admittedly, my organization of our videos needs some work - we have about 10 tapes that we haven't done anything with other than record the footage. So, I haven't looked at all of that. But I do have some quick clips on Youtube that were taken with my regular camera. There is one of his first bday where he rocks very briefly in his chair. Maybe that was autism. Maybe it was just something a one year old does. And there's a video of him running back and forth in our living room over and over and laughing hysterically. Autism? Or typical of a 1.5 year old? I don't know. He still does these things now and they are more pronounced and more obviously different than other kids his age. But back then, I'm not sure anyone would've picked him out.
Thinking back, there may have been some clues to the puzzle. I do remember complaining that he was really hard to teach. He didn't ever seem to be proud of himself when he did something and it was SO hard to keep his interest. He would acquire a new skill like waiving or clapping and we would see it once or twice and then never again. He didn't seem to seek out our approval. And he never pointed at things or brought us things that he found interesting. I never gave it a second thought. Life was so busy just trying to keep up with the 2 little ones. Happy, well-rested, well-fed boys was a successful day in my book.
So I'm really not sure when this started. I thought he had progressed completely normally until about 18 months old and then lagged behind with language. But maybe he was born with it and the symptoms just didn't manifest until later. I really don't know. And I'm not sure if or why it matters.
Likely a trained professional could've identified his disorder much sooner. I have heard of kids as young as 15 months getting the same type of intense intervention that we are doing now. Yes, 15 months. Even if it may have helped him recover or improve sooner, I'm glad we didn't know then. I'm glad we had 2 years. Two years of our "normal" family with our 2 "perfect" boys. Two years where I didn't study everything he did and wonder what it meant. Two years where I didn't see anything wrong with his silliness. Two years without the nagging worry. Because this path is considerably harder. And sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.
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